I was preparing for the funeral
yesterday that we had on Friday. I felt like I should preach from
the account in Luke chapter 23 on the thief on the cross. And
so I want to direct your attention to that chapter, Luke 23. But
before we go there, I'd like to read the first nine verses
of chapter 2 of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians
chapter 2 and verse 1. It says Hathi Quicken, which
is in italics. It means it was added by the
translators to clarify. It comes later anyway, so I'm
going to skip that part this time. And you who were dead in
trespasses and sins. wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
or our manner of life in times past in the lust of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who
is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,
by grace you are saved, and hath raised us up together and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that in the
ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now
we'll go to Luke chapter 23. I've always loved this text of
scripture. I know that If the Lord has given
you an opportunity to think about this at all, and you believe
on the Lord Jesus, this text of scripture is precious to you.
Luke 23, verse 33. And when they were come to the
place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, our
Lord Jesus. And the malefactors, or the evildoers,
One on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said
Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
And they parted his raiment and cast lots. And the people stood
beholding, and the rulers also with them derided him, saying,
He saved others. Let him save himself, if he be
Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked
him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou
be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription
also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and
Hebrew, This is the king of the Jews. And one of the malefactors
which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save
thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked
him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said to him,
Verily, I say to thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Let's pray. Dear Father, we pray
that you would apply the words here that you've given to us
about the salvation of this man by our Lord Jesus Christ and
apply them to our hearts. Help us to be like him. Save
us by your grace. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
I've entitled this message, The Love of Christ for His People.
Now the account of the Lord Jesus saying this dying thief is an
ocean of truth about his grace And it will take eternity to
unfold that ocean of truth to us. As it says in Ephesians 2
verse 7, which we just read, that in the ages to come, He
might show forth the exceeding riches of His grace towards us
in Christ Jesus. That's going to take eternity.
The ages to come, that's eternity. And God's going to take all that
time to unfold to us and unpack and show us what we never had
time on earth either to understand or to tell, the exceeding riches
of His grace towards us in Christ Jesus. But I want to draw your
attention to a few things from this scripture for your comfort,
to strengthen your faith, that you might know the love of Christ
to your soul, and so love him as he loved you." There were
three crosses here, there were two sinners, and there was one
Savior. One man was dying in his sin.
That was the first thief who railed on Jesus, who blasphemed. Another thief, the second thief,
was dying to his sins because in the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Lord Jesus himself died for his sins. And this is the amazing
account of how this took place. Now the first thief represents
all of us, as we are by nature, as we are in ourselves. It's
easy when you read these stories to take sides. I know when I
heard stories as a child, I loved to have my mom read to me. I
love to listen to stories being read, and I like to read them,
but mostly I like to hear them read. And I don't know, maybe
that's just because I wasn't a good reader or something, but
I love to hear the stories read. But when the stories were read,
I always identified with the hero in the stories. David, for
example, with David and Goliath. And you took sides against Goliath,
didn't you? Yeah. And we do that today. In
fact, Hollywood makes most of their money by creating a hero
and a villain, and making the villain seem to have power at
first, and then the hero always comes out on top in the end.
We like those stories, don't we? We'll watch them over and
over again. I'm glad he got his due. But this account is not
meant for us to take sides against the unbelieving thief in contrast
to ourselves. That's the mistaken notion that
we have. It's easy for us to identify with the righteous people
when we want to think of how God will accept us. Because we
see him accepting, let's say, David. And hear him saying of
David, he was a man after God's own heart. And we wanna be a
man after God's own heart. We wanna be accepted. So we identify
with David. But here's a man that God holds
up to us to show us what we are by nature, in ourselves, without
God's grace. This is you. This is me. This
is the mirror God shows to us, ourselves. This is why in Ephesians
chapter two, God always, He always does this. He always first shows
us our great sin, and then He tells us about His grace, which
is what He's gonna do here. So this thief teaches us about
the hardness of our natural heart and our necessity for sovereign
grace. And that's why I've entitled
this message, The Love of Christ for His People. And so we see in this second
thief something else. We see this second thief displays
God's amazing grace to sinners. This thief also, according to
the book of Matthew, was blaspheming. He also was railing against Jesus. But something happened. In a
moment of time, the Lord saved him. And you know that Jeremiah
said, until the Lord's turned me, I wasn't turned. And in Psalm
80, the cry to God is, Lord, turn us again. Repentance from
unbelief to faith, but change of mind, of the way we used to
think, to the way we think so that we're aligned with the truth
of the gospel, that's a miracle of God's grace. And it's a gift
of the Lord Jesus Christ from his throne in heaven. In Acts
5, 31, it says, the Lord Jesus was exalted to be a prince and
a savior to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins.
And in 2 Timothy 2, The Apostle Paul says that men naturally
oppose themselves, but the servant of God in meekness must instruct
those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, would give
them repentance unto the acknowledging of the truth. And so we know
that none turn, but those the Lord turns. And none call, but
those the Lord calls. And no man believes, but the
man to whom God, by his grace, gives this faith, the eyes to
see Christ, and a heart persuaded and convinced of the truth of
who he is and what he did. And so apart from God's electing
grace, redeeming grace, and life-giving grace, we too will remain as
the first thief in the hardness of our proud, blaspheming, and
unbelieving heart. And so we need to pause here,
and we need to see this. Have you ever been in an accident
or something where you were in serious danger, but you escaped?
And you look back on it. At the time, it didn't seem so
bad. It all happened so quickly. But then, maybe a day or two
later, you reflect back on it, and you realize, I almost lost
my life. And you begin to tremble at what
happened there. And no doubt, this man, seeing
himself In looking back, in retrospect, he saw, God save me by His grace. He had to intervene and save
me by His grace. And that's the message of the
gospel. But here's a man in his dying hour, a sinner up to this
point, hanging on the cross that he deserved. He said, we are
in the same condemnation and we indeed justly. A dying man
in his dying hour, blaspheming and in that moment, When it pleased
God, he turned him and gave him sight to see and a heart to be
persuaded to look to Christ and see in him all of his salvation,
all of his desire. And he was a turned man. And
in this man, we learned something very significant. That no sinner,
no sinner need despair because of his sin. Though in the same
condemnation for the same crime as the first thief, the second
thief in his dying hour by the Savior in his dying hour was
saved by his grace. And that's the gospel in a nutshell.
But no sinner can presume that God must be gracious to him.
Because the Lord saved only one man here. He only saved one. And so we see that grace of God. We see that grace of God and
as we think about that in our own lives, we hear, we remember
that time when the Lord first opened our eyes to see. that
even though I was a sinner, corrupt in all of my thoughts and ways,
unbelieving, not looking for grace, I wasn't asking for it. I wasn't asking for grace. I
was asking God to accept me for what I was in myself. Thinking
that because of my sincerity, He would find something in me.
I was dead wrong. I was on the wrong path. ignorant,
arrogant, stubborn, and sinful. And yet, then the Lord reached
down and sent his gospel, and he showed us what he's done for
us in Christ. And like this man who was rescued,
he would have praised God for that mercy he received. In Ephesians
chapter 2, it goes on and tells us what we are by nature. You
were dead in sins. You lived according to the course
of this world. You were like all the rest of
this world, living as children of the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
You were fulfilling the lust of your flesh and of your mind
and were by nature the children of wrath. And then those two
words, but God, that means God intervened. He didn't look for
a reason in you to show you grace, because grace doesn't have to
find a reason in you. It won't look for a reason, because
there is no reason. God's grace to us is not His
response to us. That's what Christianity teaches
nowadays. It's not God's response to us. They teach the opposite. It's
His response to you, accepting Jesus or asking Jesus into your
heart. But grace comes to us when we're in the height of our
rebellion and it opens our eyes to see the Savior. And in that
look, we flee to Him. Who praises God for mercy received? Who clings tightly to Christ? who is thankful for his grace,
who contemplates grace and seeks grace, but the sinner who has
been saved by grace. Now, I want you to understand
what this man who was saved heard. He was saved through what was
called in Galatians 3.1, the hearing of faith. The hearing
of faith. Sometimes we hear the truth,
and sometimes those who tell us the truth don't believe it.
And the first thief heard all the things that the second thief
heard. But it didn't produce life in him. Because God himself
has to take his word and he has to apply it to us individually.
What did this man hear? What did both of these men hear?
Well, the crowd said it. They first heard from the crowd.
They heard Jesus say, I am the Son of God. The crowd said, he
said, I am the Son of God. And the crowd said, if you be
the chosen of God. And he claimed to be the chosen
of God, the Christ of God. And they said this, if you be
Christ, then save us. Save yourself and us. So they
knew that Christ was given by God to save. The chosen of God
to save. He was anointed to save. Jesus said, I didn't come but
to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I'm come to
seek and to save that which was lost. That's why he came. Paul
said he came into this world to save sinners. The Lord Jesus
Christ came to save his people from their sins. They heard that.
He's the Christ who came to save. They said he saved others. He
saved others. And he would not save himself.
He saved others. Himself he cannot save. That's
what they said. Why? He could have, but he would
not. Because he would save others.
And they heard him. The thieves not only heard the
crowd, but they also heard the Lord Jesus. They heard his own
words. And what were those words? Father,
Those men driving the nails into his hand. Those men who took
his clothes from him and cast lots as if to ask God, which
part of Christ can I have of this spoil? What an irony. And yet the Lord Jesus, he asked
his father, Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
These thieves heard him. And what would you think of a
man who prayed that? Well, he was the intercessor
for sinners, wasn't he? He's the advocate for sinners.
He is the propitiation. He's the high priest. So they
understood he would have to be the one who makes intercession
for sinners. who offered himself and made intercession by his
own blood. And they heard it was blazoned
by Pilate. Pilate had it nailed to his cross
in three languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. This is Jesus of Nazareth,
the king of the Jews. And he was the king of all of
God's true Israel. They heard him reviled, and yet
he did not revile again. When he was threatened, and falsely
accused, and mocked, and spit upon, and hit in the face, and
hit on the head with the reed they used to mock him as king,
and when they lashed his back, and stripped him, and cruelly
and viciously nailed him to the cross, he did not threaten again. He did not seek vengeance again
towards them. but in quiet, submissive obedience,
and in the utmost trust in his God and Father, that he would
fulfill his promises to him, to save his people by his own
sacrifice on the cross, to justify them to Lord Jesus Christ willingly
submitted. And they heard this, they saw
this. They saw His love. They saw His humility. They saw
the submission of His obedience. They knew that He trusted God.
And what did He trust His God and Father to do? To deliver
Him. And delivering Him, deliver His
people. They said, He trusted in the
Lord that He would deliver Him. Let God deliver Him now, seeing
that He trusted in Him. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, entrusted
himself to his Father, bearing our sins, submitting himself
to the vilest, falsest accusations and beatings and mockings and
humility any man ever suffered. Isaiah 53 says, His visage was
more marred, more than any man, actually Isaiah 52, more than
any man. And in Lamentations it says that
he suffered more than any man. And so we know the Lord Jesus
did all these things, and these thieves saw this, his willing
suffering. Suffering, though he could deliver
himself, he did not deliver himself because he would save his people.
He prayed for sinners. He was numbered with the transgressors
and he made intercession for the transgressors. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. They saw this. And this unbelieving
thief, I want you to notice, also saw something else. Not
only did he hear the crowd, not only did he see and hear the
Lord Jesus' own words, but he heard a sinner, like himself,
in every way, going to the Savior, calling upon Him, venturing upon
Him as a sinner with these words, Lord, remember me. And yet this
man This man remained unbowed to the Son of God, the Savior
dying next to him on the cross, and he never asked for mercy.
He heard him pleading for sinners, but he never asked Christ, plead
for me. He saw him dying there in answer
to God's justice, but he never saw in him an answer of justice
for himself, and so he never came to the Lord Jesus. This is amazing. The Lord Jesus
doing all these things in the presence of these two men and
only one man was affected by it. And we know this is all God's
doing. What made the difference between
these two men? Well, we would think naturally in our natural
untaught mind, we would think, well, it's because one of them
decided to follow Jesus. But that's the whole point of
this text of scripture, is to show us, no, he was just like
the other man. Two were there on the cross,
two guilty, the same crimes, the same condemnation, both hearing
the same gospel words of grace, and only one of them believed. This is amazing. Now, I want
to draw your attention here to something else. There's so many
things we could draw attention to from this scripture. Like
I said, it's an ocean of truth and grace. But I want you to
see here in this the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ to a
dying sinner. The compassion of the Lord Jesus
Christ to a dying sinner. Someone asked at the funeral
yesterday, C.D. was the name of the man who died,
and when his son-in-law was young, He was in his Sunday school class,
and C.D. asked him, what is love? And
so the kids were supposed to write out what they understood
love to be. And he was relating how he wrote
out something. He sweated bullets trying to
figure out what it was. He wrote it all down. He went
back to the class and told his future father-in-law, C.D. He
said, this is what love is. And he told him. And CD looked
at him, and he says, that's about the dumbest thing I ever heard.
And this man, whose name was Paul, a friend of mine, he was
reflecting on that with both humor and fondness for his father-in-law,
CD. But this question comes up. What
is love? What is love? This is love. What we're talking about here,
this is love. Herein is love. Not that we love
God. We don't know love by what we
do for God. We don't know love even by what
others do for us. This is love. God defines it. Herein is love. Not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sin. That sacrifice of Himself. The
love of Christ. The love of God in Christ and
the love of Christ for his own. That's what we see here, don't
we? We see two things throughout scripture. We see the contrast
of our own frightful, horrible wickedness and stubbornness and
ignorance and pride and stupidity. And here we see the overcoming
sovereign grace of God in infinite love. God gave his son. How can you measure this? How
can you measure the Son of God? How can you measure how high
He is in His place as the Son of God? God over all. And how
can you measure the depths He came to save the most vilest
of sinners? That's love, isn't it? That's
the measure of love. God laid down His life in His
Son. In our nature, he laid down his
life in our nature when we were hostile to him. That's the love
of God. The father gave his son to make
satisfaction to his justice and to make way for his grace to
be abundantly lavished upon sinners in accord with his righteousness.
He gave his son for that. Jesus is a sin atoning satisfaction
to God. He's the peace between us and
God. He removed the offense that we
put there in God. And he removed God's wrath that
was justly against us. Just like these two thieves.
He made God favorable towards us according to his righteousness.
And in all of this, God looks upon His Son and smells a sweet-smelling
Savior that He received from Him for us. And that's love. See the compassion in this account
of the Lord Jesus to an ill-deserving, hell-deserving sinner. Do you
realize that this man could do nothing to profit the Kingdom
of God? He was dying. He was guilty. He had no works to bring, and
he had no time to do any good works, did he? That's the way
it is when we're saved. God doesn't save us for value
found in us, or for value found in us in a future way of our
own performance. He made this man an object of
his saving grace. That was the value here. It was
the value of God's grace applied to this man, given to this man. It wasn't the man who received
honor and glory. It is Christ who receives the
honor and glory in his salvation. There's nothing in this man.
There was nothing this man could do to further the kingdom of
God. Soon he would die. But the Lord Jesus could. He
could further his own kingdom in the salvation of this sinner. Here we have it. This man asked
to be remembered. As if, if he wasn't remembered
by Christ, he would be forgotten throughout history. And he would
have been. But because Christ remembered him, he's probably
the most remembered man in all of scripture. It's not what we do for God.
It's what God does for us in his Son. That is to draw out
all of our heart's affection. to cause us to lay aside all
the things we hold as barriers between us and God. God's love
doesn't change. God's love never had a beginning.
I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. And God's love doesn't increase
or diminish. It's always the same. It's always
infinite towards sinners. He gave His Son, His infinite
Son, who gave Himself to stoop an infinite depth that was required
to save us from our sin. It was an infinite love and it
doesn't change and it's everlasting. The love of God. Who can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?
And yet, that love which is infinite in Christ, we can't see it, can
we? Until God opens our eyes. And
it's because our unbelief limits our estimation of His love that
we don't come to Him and embrace Christ with glad trust and joy
in our heart. It's because of our own unbelief.
The barrier is in us. It's not in Him. And that's why
God, in His grace, had to remove this barrier in this thief. This
is the only way any man can glorify God. It's all of grace, all of
God's doing. We not only do not deserve grace,
but we deserve only wrath. But God has ordained that through
our sin, He would make known His love to us. Had not it been
for our sins, how would we know the love of Christ that caused
Him to give Himself for us? We wouldn't know it. And so God
arranged that we would fall in our sins, and then he would rescue
us. He was the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world, the one who gave himself for his
church. He loved the church, and therefore he gave himself
for us. Nothing is so valuable as love,
is it? Nothing. And we cherish love. We love
those God has given to us. I love my wife and I love her
especially because she loves me. We love those who love us,
don't we? It's even true with us and God.
We love him because he first loved us. It's difficult to love
those who don't love us. It's impossible, isn't it? But
the love of Christ is never something he gives in order to get something
from us. It's a gift, and it always gives. You can never earn Christ's love. Nothing is so valuable as love,
but the love of a mere man or a mere woman, the more valuable
than all of the treasures in this world to us, it still cannot
rise to the level that's required by one who has been shown his
sin. Nothing satisfies a sinner but knowing the love of God in
Christ. To know the love of God in Christ
is to plunge into that ocean of truth, into who God is, because
he is love, an ocean that passes knowledge. In Ephesians chapter
3, this is what the Apostle Paul prayed for them and for us, because
he prayed for the church here. In Ephesians chapter 3, verse
14, it says, the Apostle says to the Ephesians, for this cause,
I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians
3.15, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, and
there's no measure to that, to be strengthened with might by
his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ,
which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God. That's an impossible thing, isn't
it, for us to be filled with that way, to know what passes
knowledge. And so he says, now unto him
who is able to do, exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think, according to the power that works in us, unto
him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages,
world without end, amen. This thief asked for one thing.
Lord, remember me. Two words, actually three. Lord, remember me. They said,
he said, I am the son of God. He heard that. He knew he was
the son of God. Therefore he told the other thief,
don't you fear God? You're in the same condemnation
here before the son of God, before whom you'll soon stand in judgment.
and face eternity in the sins and the condemnation you justly
deserve. Don't you fear God, we're in
the same condemnation. And we indeed justly, but this
man has done nothing amiss. He's the holy, spotless, righteous
son of God, the sinner's advocate. So, that was the first thing
he heard. He heard he was the son of God.
And he heard that he was Christ, and he believed him, the one
God chose to save his people from their sins. He heard he'd
saved, and he trusted him to save him. He heard that he was
the king, and he knew that this king would overcome the greatest
enemy, our sin. Where sin reigned unto death,
now what reigns? Grace. How? through righteousness
by Jesus Christ, through righteousness unto eternal life, Romans 5.21.
Isn't that what the Lord says? Where sin reigned unto death,
even so now grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. He knew that the King, the Lord
Jesus, was King and He would conquer sin and death. Before whose face hell and death
flee away. This is the Lord Jesus in his
glory, in his majesty. He saw him. The whole crowd saw
a figure so marred, so bloody, so weak and helpless. His beard
had been pulled out, his head bloodied by the crown of thorns
and by the beating on his head and the fist in his face and
the lash upon his back. And he had carried his cross
as far as his body was strong enough to do. Hadn't eaten for
hours. Hadn't drunk anything. He was
thirsty. He was dying. And the crowd saw
that. They mocked him. We're going
to divide your clothes among us. We're going to take the spoils,
hardly anything. He was nothing to them. And yet
to this thief, he was the Lord of glory, the king in his power,
laying down his life for sinners, rescuing these poor, helpless
sinners from their sins. And he heard his voice. He said,
Lord, remember me when you come, when you come into your kingdom,
you're going to go to death, to the grave. That's your purpose
for coming. and you're going to be buried
but then you're going to go to take your place as the king of
glory and when you come into your kingdom Lord remember me. If the Lord Jesus Christ remembers
you When did he start thinking about you? How long will he continue
thinking about you? In what way will he remember
you? Well, if he remembers you, it means that you were written
on his palms and in his heart from eternity. When he engaged
with the father to be surety to his father for his people,
you were there. When he took your nature, he
was thinking of you. You see, when we see this thief
and we see how the Lord Jesus had compassion on him, we see
his prayer, we see how Christ promised that he would be with
him in paradise this day, we think somehow that that's a little
bit more than what we're going to receive. That's because we
think in our wicked hearts that God's grace somehow depends on
us. But you see, when the Lord Jesus
spoke in compassion to this man and in promise to this man that
he would not only remember him, but that he would be this day
with him in paradise, he was saying this not just for him,
but for all of us who trust him like this man did. You see, everything
in scripture that's written for our comfort, that's written to
teach us, that's written to Proclaimed to us what Christ has done and
his love for sinners is written to everyone who believes He died
for the church. We're members each one of his
body He let he loved the church and gave himself for it There's
not one in the church. He loves more than another or
less than the other The Lord Jesus Christ words to this man
are the words to every sinner looking to Christ And that's
an amazing thing there was a communion here and between this thief and
the Lord Jesus. How did he know to pray this?
How did he know to say, Lord, and remember me? And when you
come again, and you're coming in your kingdom as king, how
did he know these things? How did he believe them? Remember
what it says in Romans chapter eight? This is amazing grace,
amazing grace. It says in Romans chapter eight,
In verse 26, the Spirit also helps our infirmities. For we
know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit
itself makes intercession for us. The Spirit in us makes intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. You see, this thief
expressed the desire of his own heart, Lord. Remember me. If you remember me in your coming
into this world, in your life, in your death, in your sufferings
as a substitute for sinners, in your resurrection, in the
justifying work of your righteousness, in your ascension, and in your
exaltation, and in your coming again. If you remember me, then
what else do I need? That was the desire of his heart.
Lord, just remember me. The baker forgot Joseph, and
men forget. But our Lord cannot forget. He
cannot forget his people. And so the Spirit of God put
this in this man's heart to pray, not only his desire, but the
will of God for him. Christ's desire. Isn't that what
he said when he spoke to the woman at the well, to his disciples?
He said, they he had been speaking to this woman he said woman give
me to drink and she didn't understand he said if you knew the gift
of God you would have asked of me I would have given you living
water and he goes through this whole ordeal taking her down
into the dregs of her sin and then raising her up to see that
it was the Lord Jesus Christ who stood before her he himself
was that living water and And then she went away, and he's
sitting there, and his disciples come, and they say, Master, eat.
And he says, I have meat to eat that you know not of. The desire
of his heart was to have this woman and save this woman, a
sinner, and so drink from the well that he opened, taking water
out of his own cistern. The Lord Jesus desired the salvation
of this man. That's why he was saved. And
that's why he prayed according to the will of God. Lord, remember
me. This is the communion, the intimate,
deep fellowship between a sinner, guilty and corrupt and helpless
and naked in his sins before an all-seeing God and a Savior
in the plentitude of his grace. as the mediator with no one in
between, and they come into direct embrace when the Lord Jesus gives
him a revelation of himself as the only Savior of sinners. He
only had one hope. He had no family around the cross.
This man had no friends there. He was left dying with the Lord
Jesus. And what else would we want than
to die with Christ, as this man did? He had communion with the
Son of God in our nature. This, remember me, is a very
deep expression of the desire of His heart. And that heart,
that desire, matched the desire of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is amazing grace, isn't
it? I wonder if we have some idea, if we know something about
this love of God in Christ. I wonder if I do. I wonder if
you do. You know, when you know what
Christ has done for us, when we know this, you know what it
causes us to do? It causes us to feel compassion
towards sinners who suffer like we do under the weight and the
guilt of our sin. And we see their hatred. It comes
out of their mouth. They have a bad attitude towards
us. But by God-given faith, we see something else. We see what
Christ has done for us and his compassion towards us. He was
dying. The Lord Jesus himself had compassion
on the sinner. He was dying, not for his own
sins, but he was dying under the weight of sin. He was numbered
with the transgressors. No man ever suffered like he
did. And his suffering, although to men it was unjust, to God
it was just. He died as a sinner, as the greatest
of sinners. And he knew, he trusted in the
Lord that he would deliver him. He had committed himself into
the hand of his God and Father as one who needed to have God's
mercy and have God reach down and raise him from the dead.
That's what the Lord Jesus did. He submitted himself as a man,
in every way as we are, completely dependent on his God. And now
he hears the cry of this man, inspired by the Spirit of God,
praying out of his heart, Lord remember me. And he himself who
knew no sin, but was made sin for us, and suffered under the
weight of that sin, because of our sin, He heard the cry of
a needy sinner crying under the weight of his own sin. And so
he had compassion on him. And that's what God's grace does
to us. We know the love of God in Christ.
And we know it in part, but that drives us to have compassion
on others who are also sinners, even when they revile us. And
so, the Apostle Peter used this in 1 Peter 2, verse 22, and so
on. He says when he was reviled,
he reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened
not. He didn't try to take vengeance, because he saw past the hostility
of the sinner. to the sinner's true need. And
that's what God's grace does, doesn't it? As the songwriter
used to say, he looked beyond my fault and he saw my need. So this man, he prayed, Lord,
remember me. Now, I want my children to remember
me with fond memories. I want my wife to also. But really,
their memories of me aren't going to really do much for me when
I'm gone, are they? Because our memories really don't
accomplish much, especially for those that we loved after they've
died. But it says in Proverbs 10, verse 7, the memory of the
just is blessed. The memory of the righteous,
or the just, is blessed. Why is the memory of the just
blessed? Because it's the Lord Himself who remembers them. His
memory of His people is a blessed memory, isn't it? Our memory
of our loved ones is a blessed memory, especially when we know
that they were They were among those, God saved by His grace,
those just ones. What did this man mean, though,
when he said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom?
I believe that he meant that he wanted Jesus not only to remember
him when he came again, but to remember him at all times. Remember
me, Lord, as my surety, when you hang there on that cursed
tree, bearing the sins and shame of your people before God. Remember
me in your prayer that you prayed for those that crucified you.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Remember
me like that prodigal son who came to his father and said,
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I
am not worthy to be called your son. Remember what he said, bring
the best robe and put it on my son and shoes for his feet and
the ring for his hand and preach the gospel to this sinner, kill
the fatted calf. That's what he was saying. Remember
me, Lord, when you cry in agony, my God. My God, why hast thou
forsaken me? And know, Lord, that if you don't
remember me, I will be forsaken forever, and justly so. Remember
me, Lord, when you cry in triumph, it is finished. Remember me when
you lay down your life and commit the keeping of your spirit to
your Father, when you said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.
Remember me then. Remember me when you enter heaven
with your own blood and obtain eternal redemption for your people.
Remember me when you take up your life again. Remember me
when you roll away that stone and in your glorified body ascend
to sit on heaven's throne as the God-man and mediator. And
when you're exalted in all of your glory, unlike the baker
who was saved out of the dungeon, who forgot Joseph, Lord, remember
me. Remember me. when you administer
every detail in this world and arrange everything for the good
of your church, to build your church, to call and bring your
sheep to yourself. Remember me when you go out on
the hillside to save that lost sheep and find it and put it
on your shoulders and bring it back to the fold. Lord, remember
me. Bring me back again. Turn us
again, Lord God of hosts, cause your face to shine. Remember
me in mercy and preserving grace when you pour out your wrath
on this world. And remember me when you judge this world in
righteousness. Remember the answer you gave then, answer then for
me. Remember me when you sit on the
throne of your glory in judgment and call to the ungodly to depart. And then tell your people to
enter into that inheritance you prepared for them from the foundation
of the world. Because we're not saved by our
memory, we're saved by Christ's memory. We're not saved because
of what we think, but because of what God thinks of his son.
And that is the point here, to direct us to the grace and the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ outside of ourselves. We need
this love. We need this grace, don't we?
We need to know this Savior. We need a love higher than the
love of men and women and boys and girls. We need the love of
God to rescue us. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that's what we need. Grace that reaches into the death
of our soul and raises us with Christ. He himself comes to live
in us and we will never die because he is the resurrection and the
life. If Jesus died and rose again that all those who sleep
in Jesus he will also bring with him because he lives. Let's pray. Lord we pray that as this thief
was arrested in his downward spiral to hell you spoke from your throne even
from the cross in your sovereign power and grace spoke to his
heart caused him to pray a prayer that was on your heart to remember
him and and then receive glory to yourself in saving a sinner
by your sovereign grace. Lord, we pray as you thought
of him, think on us. We don't deserve your grace.
There's nothing we could do to earn it or keep it or boast in
it. It's going to be what you do
because of your purpose in Christ Jesus, your promise, Your faithfulness
because of His righteousness that we're saved. You've taught
us to hang our entire eternal souls on the Lord Jesus' words
and on His blood and righteousness. And Lord, we thank you for that.
But we pray, Lord, that in this we would understand the love
of Christ, the length and breadth and height and depth. And we
ask these things not because we have any notion that we could
receive an answer because of our asking. But because you are
able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, for
Jesus' sake, exalt your son, Lord. Exalt him to the highest
place and cause us to see him there. In Jesus' name we pray,
amen.